


Home in Oklahoma

by Bounds of Decency (boundsofdecency)



Category: Leverage
Genre: Character Study, Community: leverageland, Gen, Giving the gift of your time, Hometown Pride, Longing For Home, Providing for your family, Slowing down, Warm fuzzy fluff, What matters in life, Working class values
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1325089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boundsofdecency/pseuds/Bounds%20of%20Decency
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because life's not about how much you make or what you do.  It's about the people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home in Oklahoma

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Written as a gift for and inspired by charmingalias4 in the community [Leverageland](http://leverageland.livejournal.com)
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** The characters, settings, equipment, backstory, and anything else you recognize aren't mine. Good thing, too. If they were mine, there wouldn't be so much canon goodness and excellent fanfic out there.

There’s just something about the way a working man lives, the daily act of providing for your family. There's something about having a work ethic. Something that has nothing to do with success or status. For the working man, it's about having pride in your work, putting the hours in, and getting the job done.

It’s something you can’t even see the value of if you weren’t raised in it. And somehow, Eliot still feels like he’s a part of that. That’s something that doesn’t change, no matter how much money he’s got tucked away. It's part of him no matter how long it's been since he's gone home to Oklahoma.

He'll never get tired of taking down bad guys. But what he's really in it for are those times when he makes a real difference in the life of some guy who’s still gonna be punching a time clock at age seventy-one. That's when Eliot knows he’s finally got something to be proud of. And maybe that means he’ll never settle down. But like his daddy taught him, you’re never gonna be worth the name of ‘husband’ if you can’t or won’t give more than you take.

More and more these days, Eliot finds himself going home to the simple country folk he grew up with. He stays out of Ok City -- no need to run across someone who might know someone who knows someone. But places like Stillwater and Okmulgee, that’s where he’ll settle down someday, if he ever gets to that part of his life where he can settle down.

Eliot gets all caught up in talking to the grandma of twelve (great grandma of two and another great grand-baby on the way) who counts down his change. He'd sorely missed the feeling of connecting with a stranger who doesn’t seem to stay a stranger for long. He steps aside to let the next customers pay for their home grown strawberries, just to find they’re in no rush. So he deals them into the conversation.

Sophie never got this. She never could get that it wasn’t just about flirting and getting the company of a lovely lady for a night. Fact was, when he had a California woman’s full attention, that was the closest he could find to the genuine, open friendliness of a Tulsa native’s smile. It was close, but not close enough.

There’s something in the simple generosity of setting things aside and just being part of someone else’s world for two minutes. That’s what home has always been and will always be. He does his best to show that through his cooking, putting his passion and time into creating something meant to be shared.

By now, the team knows he means business, when it comes to supper time. Everyone’s learned long ago that if Eliot’s cooking, that means everyone drops what they’re doing to sit together as a family.

So maybe it wasn’t so wrong if he couldn’t hide his smile as Parker laughed herself into hiccups at Hardison’s foolishness. Just like that working man who’ll punch a time clock ‘til he’s seventy-one, there’s nothing about living that matters at all unless it's about what’s worthy of your time.


End file.
